


fill the empty parts of me

by ashtxns



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-03 03:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8694226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashtxns/pseuds/ashtxns
Summary: The days grow colder, shorter. Keith has put the calender back up in the kitchen. The post-it notes sit in his nightdrawer, collecting dust.





	

The apartment feels empty when Keith steps in.

Not just empty—there’s a kind of loneliness which sits between the couch cushions, under the blanket which Lance’s grandma had knitted them, between all the different mugs on their kitchen shelves despite how many times Keith told Lance that _no we do not need another penguin-themed mug, yes I see how cute they are_ ; a kind of loneliness which hides under their floorboards, their rattling windowpanes, their too many blankets on the bed because Lance always got cold easily.

 _Theirs_. Keith hasn’t stopped thinking of it as their apartment even though it hasn’t been _theirs_ for a while now. Not since the accident, not since Lance woke up and looked at Keith and had asked _who are you?_

He lets the door fall shut behind him. The loneliness settles.

 

 

 

 

“How is he?” asks his best friend and Keith almost wants to get up and leave the coffee shop. Instead, he forces himself to stay in his seat and tightens his grip around his coffee cup. Allura eyes him with concern.

“Getting by,” answers Keith and Allura sighs.

“And you?”

And Keith knows—lying to Allura would be a futile attempt at dodging the question and she’d see right through him, always has, since the start of their friendship probably. _How is he?_ That’s a good question, one he was too afraid to ask himself ever since Lance came home—ever since he woke up, more likely. He’d rather immerse himself in redecorating the apartment; hiding all the things of them that could indicate to them being a couple, something more than friends because, according to Lance, that’s what they are. He’d rather take down their calendar with all their appointments written on, would rather hide the colourful post-it notes, _I love you <3_ and _see you tonight!_ and _don’t forget dinner_ and _I’ll be home at 8_ written on them, and hide them in his desk drawer, he’d rather take down the picture of them kissing on New Year’s when Lance proposed and they were both grinning into the kiss, Keith’s hand grasped in Lance’s shirt, the city in the background; would rather hide his engagement ring than ask himself _how am I doing?_ Because he knows—one detour from his carefully planned day, being aware of Lance in the apartment, being so close but yet too far away—and he’d break.

Allura’s watching him. “Getting by,” is all he says in the end.

Someone enters the coffee shop. The bell rings above the door and a gush of cold air rushes in. Keith shivers in his seat.

 

 

 

 

“Who are you?” Lance had asked. His gaze had settled on him and he’d blinked once, twice, and Keith’s stomach lurched.

“I’m—“ he’d stuttered. Taken a deep breath. “It’s me. Keith.” He’d managed a small, reassuring smile, despite his heart feeling heavy in his chest, despite the low panic breeding in his gut.

Lance had furrowed his brows. “Who?”

His grip on the chair had tightened. His knuckles had turned white.

“Lance, it’s me,” he’d said, voice cracking at the end. “Please—“

“I don’t know you,” Lance had interrupted him flatly, eyes narrowing. “Are you friends with Hunk?”

“Lance, c’mon,” Hunk had laughed, unsure. “It’s Keith. Y’know, your boyfriend, your fiancé, your _Keith_.”

“Fiancé?” Lance had glared at Hunk. “Very funny, Hunk. I think I’d remember if I were engaged.”

Keith had choked on thin air. “I-I gotta—“ He’d gotten up, his hands balled up into fists. “I gotta go, I have to—“ He couldn’t finish, not with Lance staring at him, _not recognizing him_ , not with Hunk looking at him with pity in his eyes, a silent _I’m sorry_ on his face, not with the hospital room being so _white_ and _too bright_ , and he’d left and had a panic attack in the hospital’s bathroom.

Turns out Lance remembered Hunk, and Pidge. Remembered his family. Remembered everything of his life before he went off to college. Before he met Keith.

That night Keith went home and smashed five of their plates.

 

 

 

 

Pidge sees right through him as soon as he opens the door.

“When was the last time you slept?” she asks, eyes narrowed. “And don’t you dare lie to me.”

Keith bites back a comment on how Pidge could never appear threatening; more like a disgruntled puppy if he was being honest. He rolls his eyes and steps back, allowing her in. “Slept a few hours last night,” he says, making his way into the kitchen.

“And a few hours mean?” Pidge asks, sitting down at the counter.

Keith sighs, rubbing his neck. “Fell asleep at twelve. Woke up at two. Stayed awake until my alarm went off.”

“You jerk,” Pidge says but there’s no heat behind her voice. She glances around the kitchen, eyes falling on the mugs behind Keith’s head and something in her face softens.

“If you want,” she starts and Keith looks up. “He can live with us for a while? Hunk offered. And maybe it’d be good for Lance to be, y’know…” she doesn’t finish, falling silent but Keith catches on.

“To be surrounded by people he knows,” Keith says quietly. “Sure. That’s a good idea.”

“How is it? Living with him?”

Keith thinks back to silent dinners with Lance, to stilted conversations, to gradually talking together again like normal people, to Lance making jokes, to watching shows before bed. It almost feels like it used to be. The only difference, after they said goodnight, is that Lance disappears in the guest bedroom.

“We’re getting by,” he says.

(Later, he tries to ignore how Lance visibly brightens up when he sees Pidge.)

 

 

 

 

“I’m okay,” he says to Shiro’s unasked question. “I know you and Allura and everyone else has been talking behind my back, but please—“ Keith’s hands by his sides ball up into fists. “I’m _fine_.”

Shiro, to his credit, doesn’t comment how his voice cracked at the _fine_ , doesn’t say anything about the dark rings under his eyes, doesn’t ask about the engagement ring, doesn’t mention Lance at all. He simply lets him be.

That’s all Keith needed.

 

 

 

 

After the accident, when Lance was still recovering in the hospital and Keith hadn’t been able to sleep at all, after Allura had sent him home and told him to shower and clean himself up and not live on hospital food and coffee, he had cleaned the whole apartment, wanted Lance to come home to something nice, to distract himself that it felt empty without Lance, and lonely.

With Lance home again, he’d thought the loneliness would go away, would stop being a constant presence in those four walls, would stop haunting him.

It only got worse.

 

 

 

 

He had prepared himself for this. He knew hiding the ring in his bedside drawer wasn’t a very good hiding spot and maybe he had stashed it there subconsciously, maybe a small part of him had hoped that if Lance found the ring he’d magically remember again, remember his life before the accident, his life with Keith, remember _them_.

All he gets is a blank face and a, “What’s this?” when he comes home and finds Lance on the couch, the box with the ring sitting in on the table.

Keith swallows. “I can—“

“Explain?” Lance interrupts him, his face still a blank canvas but his eyes—his eyes are flitting between Keith and the box and there’s nothing familiar in them; Keith might aswell not exist for him.

“You gave it to me,” is all Keith says in the end. He wants to say so much more— _please remember, please, you used to love me, we used to be happy, please, please, I beg you, why don’t you—_

Lance says, “I’m going to stay at Hunk’s for a while.”

The ring sits on the coffe table, forgotten.

 

 

 

 

“You—you what?” Hunk asks slowly, eyes wide.

Lance clicks his tongue. “I wanna get back into the dating world. All of you guys have someone and me? I have cold pizza.” Lance glances between Hunk and Pidge. “Let’s go out tonight!”

“What about—“ Hunk starts but cuts himself off. “Sure,” he says eventually and Lance visibly brightens up. “Let’s do that.”

(That night, Pidge stays over at Keith and tells him the news. Keith bites his lip until he draws blood. “That’s good for him,” he says.)

 

 

 

 

Months go by, fall turns into winter and Keith hasn’t spoken to Lance since he officially moved out and got his own apartment.

The days grow colder, shorter. Keith has put the calender back up in the kitchen. The post-it notes sit in his nightdrawer, collecting dust.

 

 

 

 

He sees Lance one Monday evening at the train station, with his arm around a girl.

He looks happy. He’s laughing and it rips Keith apart. Lance has always looked the most beautiful while laughing; Keith had told him that years ago when they had gotten engaged and their days had been filled with wedding plans, and spontaneous dates when Lance had picked him up from work, and laughter. Lance looks carefree, at peace, calm while he’s laughing, eyes crinkled by the corners, his laughter perfectly suited for his bubbly and positive personality.

And his laugh is always followed by a soft smile, one which radiates affection and longing and _love_ , which was always directed towards Keith, but now that smile is meant for a girl who probably doesn’t know that Lance takes honey in his tea, that Lance has to sleep on the right side of the bed or he’ll get nightmares, according to him, that Lance freezes easily and falls ill surprisingly fast, needs to sleep with two blankets, even in summer, that he knows too many obscure facts about penguins, that—

That he loves too much and trusts too easily.

That Keith would fight wars and burn cities just to see that smile directed towards him, once more.

Across the train station, Lance lifts his head and sees Keith. He raises his hand in a polite wave. Keith almost wants to laugh at that, in the years they’ve known each other they had never greeted each other with a wave—

(But, he supposes, if things were the way they used to be, Keith would be standing right next to Lance and not on the opposite end of the station hall. Thing have changed.)

He waves back.

 

 

 

 

One year after the accident, there’s a knock on his front door and Keith opens it to see Lance standing on the doorstep, drenched from the rain outside. He’s gotten thinner. His hair is longer.

“I broke up with her,” Lance says. “I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything but I think I’m in love with you.”

It’s one year after the accident. It’s one week after their what would have been their seventh-year anniversary.

Outside, the rain is still falling. Outside, people meet up, finish work for the day, start work, go home to their families, their loved ones, no one. Outside, the cold settles in your bones.

Inside, there’s a blanket on the armchair. Inside, a single penguin-themed mug sits among the other mugs, the windowpanes rattle from the wind, the TV plays on in the background, the floorboards creak under their feet.

Inside, the loneliness disappears when Lance steps into the apartment.


End file.
